Doctoral Candidate is Recipient of Prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Doctoral candidate Michael Schleppy, who earned Rutgers University undergraduate degrees in electrical and computer engineering and mathematics in 2023, has received a coveted National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award.
By providing an annual stipend of $37,000 for three years the GRFP helps to support and foster the development of the US engineering workforce.
“The award is a huge validation that graduate study is the right path for me, and a huge milestone for my professional development that I hope will assist me in my future professional endeavors,” Schleppy states.
Schleppy, a student of ECE Distinguished Professor Emma Soljanin, expects to receive his PhD in 2028 and pursue a career in academia or industry research.
“I really like how broad ECE is, especially in terms of the courses offered at Rutgers,” Schleppy explains. “I had the good fortune to take a wide variety of courses – from signal processing, machine learning, information security, and quantum computing to name just a few. It’s really cool to see how they all come together.”
He applies this foundational knowledge to his current research, which he describes as using “quantum games to study challenges in quantum information theory and quantum communications. Many tasks in quantum cryptography and communications can be formulated as games.
“By rigorously understanding these games, we can establish strong proofs for the security or efficiency of certain protocols in quantum information science. This is a relatively new field, which gives me the opportunity to work on new and exciting problems,” he adds.
